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Month: October 2015

Exhaustion

As I left the tournament Saturday, I was a little agitated. My last game has not gone well, though I’d won, and the entire day was spent tirelessly working towards what I felt was a pedestrian 2-2 showing. Both victories seemed hollow, and both defeats seemed felt self-inflicted. This isn’t to say that the person who won shouldn’t have – they did, but I could defenitly see where I made it much harder on myself than I should have. Above all I felt my main caster throughout the tournament, Zaal 2, was working uphill. I’d spent the last two months playing him, and though it was fun, I’m tired of using a caster that feels like he has one hand tied behind his back.

In just a few days, I’ll be going to only the third tournament I have made it to all year. I had much higher aspirations (6) at the start of the year, but life throws its vagaries at us as it chooses, not as we determine. neither tournament was a rousing success, though I managed to peel away with 2 wins in each outing. This weekend looks to be a big one as well, with 16 players signed up currently. We may once again hit the fabled 5th round! What am I taking this weekend? Well, lets take a look!

I love DMing. Its a problem I have and I don’t really know how to fix it. Often times I have been playing in a game and thought it would be better off for everone if a character was allowed to do something that had been stifled, either due to the dictates of the game, the personality of the DM, or the temperment of the characters. Part of this is that I have a bit to much control freak in me, but part of it stems from seeing, in my mind, how much cooler things can be when the players dictate the game to the DM.

Three and Out

Since moving on from Zaal 2 a few weeks ago, I’ve picked up our second-newest caster and started messing with lists for him, and even getting a few games in. Thats right, I’m playing Hit Squad. I’ve talked a little bit about what I envisioned and how I was going to play him, as well as the first battle report. I’ve gotten two more games in with him now, and even though I’ve won all of them, I don’t think I’m actually going to play him much longer.

As many of you know, my relationship with Battlefoam is, to put it in a word, strained. There was a long time where I would defend both the owner and the company, but those days are long behind me. I won’t rehash why, but I am sure you can read my posts on your own.

Devastating

Spoilers, book releases and No Quarter previews, for years, have been part of what the forums like to call the “Doom Cycle.” There is a picture, but I won’t bore you with it. Google it yourself. Suffice it to say their are four steps:

Announce.

Pronouncements of Doom.

Release

Pronouncements of Glee. at which time we go back to step 1.

The time we dwell in each portion of the cycle depends on a number of factors, none of which seem either controllable or predictable. Today is the start of the Release portion of the cycle, which is blending, as it does every time, the Doom and Glee. I’m going to go over each release, fairly quickly, and give it a once over.

My first introduction to RPG’s was the AD&D Monster Manual and its myriad of creatures from the mythological to the completely bizarre. I didn’t comprehend the codex at first, but I took it on myself to learn. Hit Dice and Attacks went from random numbers on a page to delineating the toughness and lethality of the entry. The leap from reading about the monsters to imagining stories about them was trivial, with but a small step between there and creating entire worlds and then running the game. I stuffed notebooks to the brim with stories and castles, places fantastic and wonderful. I wrote out the paths the player would take through the woods into the castle, through the castle into the dungeon, and through the dungeon into the clutches of the final boss monster controlling it all. I can honestly say that I believe that plan never came to fruition.

Hit Squad

After 7 games with Zaal 2, I had settled on a list that was flexible, resourceful, and applied pressure to the opponents army with a method that I could employ. Once I get to that point with a caster or list, I like to set it aside, especially with a limited time frame left for the faction (come on Denny 3!), and pick up another caster or list and try to get a grip on what their approach to the game is. This time around, I reached for Hit Squad Morghoul 2’s new theme force, released in Forces of Distinction and available in Warroom.